Double the 0, Double the Fun
by zweihaender
Summary: SLASH -- Part of the Bondformers pseudo-project: The Lamborghini twins are out on reconnaissance for the agency, but bite off more than just energon shortcake. Warning: Seekers in maid outfits.
1. Chapter 1

Okay, a little backstory/explanation for those not in the know.

Bondformers is not my personal project; it was started by a bunch of like-minded Transfans on /cm/. When ideas started getting crazy, what with all the drawfags flooding threads with fanart of Starscream in a red silk dress and Optimus in a dapper black suit, hundreds of possible story-lines arose and since /cm/ no longer takes kindly to wall-of-text posts, the writefags (myself included) posted their stuff on the tfwip(underscore)4(underscore)chan LiveJournal community. There are already a couple of Bondformers stories posted ages ago here on FFnet that detail the (mis)adventures of the main stars (OP/SS), and you can find links to those stories and others on the LJ comm.

With that said, please enjoy my first foray into published fanfiction. Beware adverb abuse.

.. .. .. ..

"This is it?"

Sunstreaker glanced again at the small slip of paper he held, and casually scorched it to cinders. He looked appraisingly at the white frills and stylized white awnings glinting in the light of Cybertron's sun. "P _did_ say they owned a restaurant."

Sideswipe snorted and dusted off a bit of ash that fell on the sleeve of his crisp black suit, identical to his twin's beside him. "He obviously neglected to say it was a costume café, with _cross-dressing_ mechs prancing about. Not that I'm complaining," he added, ducking to peer at the menu propped on an easel, and suddenly let out a whoop of delight that caused some of the customers to stare. "Hey Sunny, check this out! They've actually got energon shortcakes! And energon jelly cornettes!" Sideswipe excitedly continued tallying other items on the menu that caught his optics, but his twin had already stopped listening, thoroughly distracted by a point further above the menu. Sunstreaker subtly nudged his brother, and nodded to the point in question, now sauntering its way towards them.

"Cakes aren't the only short notices around here," Sunstreaker said in an undertone, and when Sideswipe raised his head he found himself staring into gorgeous golden optics that crinkled around the edges as their owner smiled pleasantly at them.

"Welcome to Heaven Seekers Café, may I offer you two gentlemechs a seat?"

It took Sideswipe some time to remember to close his slack jaw but he quickly recovered and easily slipped into a winning smile as he deliberately raked bright blue optics across the waiterbot's (maidbot's?) sleek wings that glowed pure gold, like the rest of his body detail. Lines of pale gold lace peeked out from under his pelvic, knee and upper arm plates, while reddish-gold frills covered his throat. A decorative sheet of metal hung low on his hips like a half-open skirt, with a large red and gold bow peeking out from behind, highlighting the flier mech's smooth white thighs. Sideswipe was having difficulty believing this wasn't a female bot. "Thank you, my dear. We'll have a booth in the back."

The golden Seeker smiled again, bowed, and made to lead them inside when Sunstreaker smoothly caught his waist. He pulled the other mech close and discreetly tucked something into his hand. He bent down to whisper into the maidbot's audio receptor, "Why don't you let us see ourselves in, while you run along and bring us two energon shortcakes and the ladies running this establishment?"

"You could even serve the ladies with the cakes, we really wouldn't mind," Sideswipe added, a smirk crossing his faceplate.

The maidbot glanced at the note in his hand and looked back up at Sunstreaker. "They might be a little occupied right now, sir," he continued in a similarly low voice, his throaty voice like fingertips running across the Lamborghini's dermal plates. Sunstreaker found himself wondering vaguely where he had his vocalizer carefully modified to achieve that particular effect. "But I'll try to persuade them to come ov—"

Sunstreaker cut him short with a dazzling smile. "Madame…" he flicked an optic to the elaborate nameplate on his chest vent, "… Sunstorm, I can assure that they _will_ come over once that particular note is delivered to them. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't bother at all." Sunstreaker released him from his arm.

The maidbot Sunstorm nodded then, and walked a little unsteadily to the back of the tall glass display, nearly grazing a black and red maidbot with his wing. The other maidbot nearly lost his hold on a tray of delicate cups of hot energon infusions, and quietly hissed at Sunstorm, who made an apologetic gesture in reply.

Sideswipe chuckled at his twin. "Careful where you throw around that charm of yours, I think he busted a turbine back there," he said, watching as Sunstorm was now presumably deep in conversation with two figures hidden behind the stacks of pale pink energon muffins and iridescent energon éclairs. At one end of the display counter, a black and white maidbot rang up the cashier.

"All in a day's work, little bro," Sunstreaker replied, his gaze following his brother's. Then he went inside, followed shortly by Sideswipe, and looked around. "Now where is that booth you so thoughtfully reserved for us?"

They snaked their way through the crowded café. Over the slow beat of the music playing in the overhead speakers, muted conversations flared up left and right over plates of the most exquisitely prepared drinks and pastries the twins had ever seen. The ornate decorations didn't stop at the sidewalk; instead they seem to have multiplied and turned more intricate inside the shop, where white lace trimmings and velvet damasks seemed to spill from nearly every available surface. Tables and chairs were styled to resemble fluffy white poufs, and even the pale china was inlaid with complex titanium whorls. A faint but delicious aroma of warm energon pervaded the air inside.

Fortunately the booth at the back was already empty when they reached it, and shortly after making themselves comfortable Sunstorm came to their table bearing a heavy tray of what Sideswipe thought was a cloud of electron icing on top of a very large energon cake.

"Madames Skywarp and Thundercracker have asked me to serve this cake especially for the two of you, free of charge," Sunstorm said, gracefully setting the cake down in the middle of the table after he passed two small plates to Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. "Please accept it as a token of hospitality from us. Would you like me to cut a slice for you both?"

They nodded and thanked him, and as Sunstorm cut the cake he began worrying his lower lip. After he passed out the second slice of cake, he couldn't stop himself and blurted out, "I hope you two know what you're doing."

Sideswipe slowly licked electron icing off his finger, not breaking visual contact with the maidbot. Sunstreaker offlined his optics and rested his chin on his interlaced hands, a small smile playing on his pale lips. "We have some experience with these matters," Sunstreaker said lightly. "You don't have to worry that pretty little head of yours."

Sideswipe stabbed another finger into his cake. "We're kind of a big deal around here," he said finally, a wet fingertip between his smile.

Sunstorm managed to crack a worried half-smile at them, then bowed shakily and busied herself at another table. Sunstreaker's optics flicked back on as he regarded his twin beside him levelly. "Now what?"

"_Now_, we think of a plan while we eat," Sideswipe replied as he cut into a corner of his slice.

.. .. .. ..

Three-quarters into the cake, they heard a sharp staccato as two pairs of gleaming thruster boots clicked across the café's marble floor, and they stood up automatically to greet their hosts, smiling broadly.

If the twins had been attracted to the beautiful Sunstorm before, the two maidbot Seekers now walking towards them swept them off their feet. Alone, either of them would have already been quite striking; but together, they were spark-breakingly breathtaking. They weren't wearing any nameplates; but then, they didn't need to. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker already know who they were.

The mech with the darker colors, they remembered, was Skywarp; his uniform was similar to Sunstorm's, except tailored to match his paint detail. Broad black wings, shot through with a streak of violet each, spread majestically from his back. From his shoulders hung long arm guards, which braced a deadly laser gun on each side. The blue and white mech, Thundercracker, was outfitted in the same style, with identical shoulder gun braces that the other maidbots in the café lacked. His blue wings, with a stripe of red on each, quivered slightly as they stopped before the Lamborghinis' booth.

Skywarp regarded the twins' blatant ogling with a highly amused glint in his red optics, while Thundercracker elegantly raised one hand to interrupt their greeting.

"There's no need for such formalities, gentlemechs. Please, take your seats." he said courteously, in a lilting accent Sunstreaker only ever heard in countries further south. He couldn't quite place it, but it certainly had him hanging on to every word that left the Seeker's mouth. He and Sideswipe sat back down, while the Seekers slid lithely into the couch across their table.

"What urgent business compels you to seek our personal attention?" Skywarp asked, his foreign intonation prompting Sideswipe to think distractedly how distastefully nasal it would sound on anybody else, yet he found himself liking it immensely. He cleared a few cables in his throat before he spoke.

"My designation is Smokescreen, and this is my associate, Bluestreak," Sideswipe said, smoothly dropping one of their more obscure field aliases. He was fairly confident they weren't too well known in this sector of town to be immediately recognized. "We wanted to personally extend our compliments to you on your delicious…" he let his optics linger an astrosecond too long on Skywarp's cockpit, "… cakes."

Sunstreaker nodded helpfully beside him, mouth still full of cake. "They're absolutely divine," he said, cheekily winking an optic.

Thundercracker laughed delightedly. "You flatter us too much, Monsieur Bluestreak," he said, as the twins simultaneously thought _Aha, so it _was_ Tarnic!_ at each other across a specially scrambled communication link they shared between them and with the rest of the agency. "But really," Thundercracker continued, a little more serious as he leaned in closer, his optics gleaming in anticipation, "why _did_ you really call us out here?"

Sideswipe spread his arms, the picture of innocence. "We were here for the cakes!" he said, but dropped his smile slightly as Thundercracker threw him a disdainful look over his glass oculars. "And maybe a little information," he admitted, grinning again.

Skywarp smiled cryptically then. "Then if we are to speak of matters requiring some amount of truthfulness, you may as well drop your pretenses, Monsieur Smokescreen. Or should I say…" he trailed off, his smile twisting into a predatory grin, "Messieurs Sideswipe and Sunstreaker?"

The twins were shocked, though their faceplates didn't register any change in expression.

_How the slagging— our cover was flawless! We barely even visit this sector!_ Sideswipe thought irritatedly at his brother while keeping his expression perfectly composed.

Sunstreaker smiled to mask his frustration. _We're this far in already, might as well go on as planned. We'll just have to tweak a few bolts in our original strategy._ He spoke aloud to Skywarp.

"Your intelligence is impressively up-to-date, _Madame_," he said snidely. "I can see what makes this notorious little café so infamously sought after. Wouldn't you agree, Sides?" he asked his brother lightly, though he kept his narrowed optics focused steadily on the maidbots across him.

"Indeed," Sideswipe agreed, though his tone was less jovial than earlier. "Your names are something of a legend in many underground circles, though I'm afraid this is the first time we've had to avail of your… special services."

Thundercracker smiled serenely and affected a look of modesty. "I certainly hope we can live up to your expectations, although…" and here his tone turned sly, "I was not aware that our so-called legendary reputation would reach the ears of your prestigious agency."

Now it was Sunstreaker's turn to explode violently across the scrambled comm link, and Sideswipe winced internally. "Oh, we get around," he said, smirking wickedly.

Skywarp tilted his head to the side, the expression on his face now closely mirroring Sideswipe's. "If you really do get around as much as you'd like to imply, then you must know that we _always_ sell our information at the highest possible price."

A slag-eating grin sliced across Sunstreaker's faceplate as he reached into his internal storage and pulled out a tightly bolted steel cube. He slid it smoothly across the table, where Thundercracker deftly stopped it. He pressed a series of buttons on one face of the cube and unlocked the latch. Whatever was in there definitely caught his interest and held it, judging by the way his optics widened and he struggled to maintain his placid composure. Almost reluctantly, he shut the cube, and passed it to Skywarp who stared hungrily into its contents a little longer before closing it again. He rubbed his throat before speaking.

"This is a lot of energon chips just for a bit of gossip," Skywarp said finally, his voice catching on the last word.

Sunstreaker was obviously relishing that the conversation was now turned in their favor. He crossed his arms and leaned back into the couch, furiously triumphant. "So?" he asked, drawing out the word. He couldn't resist a broad smile from breaking across his face.

Thundercracker pouted irritably. "So," he snapped, "what do you want to know?"

Sunstreaker made to open his mouth again, but Sideswipe quickly overrode him. Primus knows how much time he could waste by rubbing in his victory in his opponent's faces. "I'll cut to the chase," he said briskly, leaning across the table. "Tell us where Megatron is right now, and how he plans to steal the AllSpark. Again."

Skywarp made a little noise like a muted screech as he suddenly reached across the table and angrily fisted a handful of Sideswipe's shirt and tie, pulling in their faces less than a breath apart from each other, his optics flashing red and bright. "Who the _slag_ do you think you are, Autobot _filth_, coming onto _our_ turf and demanding that kind of highly classified information like you had any _right_ to it?!" he hissed violently, the delicate Tarnic accent gone and his voice sinking considerably into an unmistakable hard-edged baritone.

"Watch it, Skywarp," Sunstreaker said quietly, breaking the uneasy silence that radiated throughout the café from their booth. Even the other maidbots stopped their incessant weaving through the tables. Two of them were still clutching loaded trays, watching them guardedly. "I've got a charged laser gun aimed at your engines under this table, and if you pull that kind of stunt on me or my partner again I _will_ explode your cylinders all over your quaint little pouf."

Thundercracker narrowed his red optics as he forced Skywarp back to his seat. Reluctantly, Skywarp released his deathgrip on Sideswipe's collar, who calmly smoothed down the fabric of his shirt as though nothing happened. He turned around to face the rest of the café, and waved casually at the crowd. "Sorry, folks," he said loudly, effectively drowning out his brother's sudden pleas to silence him, "but he was insisting I try the energon muffin with a glass of cold infusion, on the pain of getting permanently offlined." He laughed a little nervously when he got no response from the shocked crowd. "Seemed rather trivial, but you know how _irrationally_ temperamental Seekers can be," he added mildly, glancing sidelong at Skywarp. He glared back at Sideswipe, still seething, although Thundercracker was now whispering something urgently into his audio receptor that sounded suspiciously like _shut the slag up you fragging glitch_.

Eventually, the low hum of conversation blanketed the café once more, effectively covering up the dark silence that had built up among the four mechs in the last booth.

Thundercracker cleared his vocal processors as he tried to breach the thick silence. "We can withhold the information you want, even after you've already paid more than the required price. There are certain allegiances we are bound to honor first," he said, switching back to a deeper timbre as well.

Sunstreaker was amused at how little it took to provoke the Seekers into dropping their carefully cultivated façades. He steepled his hands and rested his chin on his fingertips. "Then it's just as well that we didn't pay anything yet," he said evenly.

A beat. "… What?" Thundercracker asked blankly. Skywarp immediately wrenched the steel cube open again, only confirming that it was indeed empty.

"It was a hologram," Sunstreaker said, raising an ocular ridge at their furious red glares. Mentally, he thanked one of their resident specialists, Hound, for teaching them that little trick, though neither he nor Sideswipe could sustain an image for longer than a few kliks. "We figured it would at least keep you interested long enough to spill the dirt on your boss…"

"… but apparently," Sideswipe continued, "we'd underestimated the strength of Decepticon loyalty."

Skywarp laughed humorlessly. "Well, not all of us can emulate Starscream's _shining_ example…"

Sideswipe tilted head, puzzled. _Starscream?_ he asked his brother over the comm link.

Sunstreaker quickly replied, _Yeah, you know, that femmebot Seeker 007 was supposed to take care of. Haven't heard what happened during _that_ mission yet, though._

Their thought-messages fired across the scrambled comm link like rapid gunfire, taking only astroseconds to finish. _Huh,_ thought Sideswipe, _knowing Prime, he probably seduced that poor son of a glitch into telling him everything she knew, down to the color of Megatron's internal hydraulics._

Sunstreaker reeled mentally. _Ugh, _thank_ you, Sideswipe, for giving my processor images it doesn't _ever_ need to see._

Sideswipe sent a chuckle across the link. _Always glad to oblige, Sunshine,_ he finished, cutting the link before Sunstreaker could fire back a scathing retort.

"… and we _do_ have some honor left among our ranks," Skywarp continued. "For example, we wouldn't do something as crass as conduct a business deal with illusions."

Sideswipe shrugged. "Secretly poisoning your guests doesn't seem to be beneath you, though."

Skywarp blinked his optics several times in mild surprise, but quickly concealed it with a sly smile. "… So you noticed."

Sideswipe widened his optics pointedly, glancing from Skywarp to Thundercracker. "And haven't _you _noticed anything? Like…" he waited to see if either of them was going to say something else, "… how we're both still functional?"

Realization slowly dawned on the two Decepticons like liquid nitrogen spilling down their backs.

"Here, I'll explain," Sunstreaker said, a self-satisfied tone creeping into his words. "Whatever you put in that cake…" he motioned to the decimated mass of pink frosting on the platter, "whether it was unrefined organic energon, or liquefied slag, or something worse, we're resistant to it. Specialized systems," he clarified, tapping his chest plate proudly. "One of the many perks of our job."

Sideswipe laughed outright at their bewildered expressions. "Looks like your intelligence isn't as updated as you'd like to imply," he said mockingly.

Skywarp's face turned sour. Thundercracker raised one laser gun straight at them, his optics glowing dangerously. "You are _sorely_ testing what little hospitality we have left," he said flatly. Other customers who had been watching this exchange suddenly began screaming in panic, sending everyone else running headlong out of the carved doors in a mad dash for safety. Sunstreaker noticed detachedly that the other maidbots were running in the opposite direction amid the flurry, seemingly into pre-assigned battle stations.

Sideswipe laughed again. "If you _ladies _were spoiling so badly for a fight, you could have skipped all that pleasant nonsense so we could get straight to the action," he said teasingly.

It was Skywarp's turn to laugh this time. "Ah," he sighed as he raised his laser gun as well, "but isn't it so much more exciting to go through all the lovely pretenses of attraction and flirtation?" he said, with a hint of his earlier accent

Even Sunstreaker had to admit there wasn't much he could argue against that. "So what happens between us now?" he asked, a little too suggestively for the situation.

The two Seekers grinned identically in reply, took dead aim and fired two shots.


	2. Chapter 2

Second part, with a switch.

.. .. .. ..

As the purple haze from their laser guns cleared, Thundercracker surveyed the wreckage littering the small café with obvious distaste. The delicate fabrics were torn and scattered all over the marble floor, imprinted with criss-crossing tire tracks. Synthetic stuffing torn in a frenzy out of the overturned poufs still floated down in soft white clumps, pooling amid broken dishes and spilled energon infusion. The two Autobot spies he and Skywarp had shot point-blank earlier had crashed through the aluminum lattice board behind them, knocking a table over. Their metal carcasses were effectively buried under piles of twisted lattice and half-eaten pastries. He tossed his oculars aside and shook his head morosely.

"Unbelievable. Another _complete_ renovation in less than a quartex. Blitzwing's not going to like the sound of this."

Skywarp scoffed, and blew out his smoking gun with his vent. "Tch, he knows how prone we are to damage, running this joint out in the open. Besides, Megatron owes it to us. Not counting the income he gets from his factories, our division generates a huge percentage of that old slagger's revenue, _not_ the Stunticons' bondage enterprise."

From behind the counter, Ramjet called out, "Oh, is that the one in the red light sector downtown?" He was handing out various weapons cleverly concealed underneath the glass display to the other jets.

Dirge kicked a few cups out of his way as he grabbed one rifle and five cluster bombs and made his way to the right side the main entrance. He flicked off the artificial overhead lighting and turned to face the other Seekers, a look of irritation on his dark faceplate. "Stunticons again? Primus, those circus freaks think they're _so_ hot just because they can twist their afts in all those unnatural positions…"

Sunstorm, coming out of the kitchen at the back after shutting off the sound system, laughed as he took up his position in the central booth on the eastern wall of the café, carrying a laser rifle fitted with a ray grenade launcher. Thrust, hoisting a similar weapon on his shoulder, tossed Sunstorm some extra ammunition on his way to the western side of the entrance, almost tripping on a tablecloth sticky with energon meringue. "Really," he said to Dirge across him, "I wonder whose diodes started beeping like crazy when we saw Drag Strip slide under Dead End and start rotati—"

"Oh, _really_," Dirge shot back. "Like how badly _your_ turbines went into hyperdrive that you almost crashed into a buil—"

Ramjet rolled his optics. "Knock it off already, you two," he cut in wearily as he jumped over a broken table to his station in the area behind Dirge.

Skywarp couldn't resist warming up to their argument. "You jets obviously haven't seen _Menasor_ in action yet." He elbowed Thundercracker, grinning as they picked their way to their vantage point behind the intact glass display. "Eh, Cracker? Remember that show last week?"

"Mm," Thundercracker said distractedly. His optics dimmed as he retreated further into his thoughts. "I'm still worried our situation won't convince Megatron to spare the Constructicons long enough, what with him demanding another _wing_ for his stupid lair…" he trailed off as he and Skywarp sat beside each other on the elevated platform behind the display, crumpling their elaborate bows against the cold glass.

Skywarp waved dismissively as he grabbed a cable from the energon charger under the register and plugged it in one of his mounted laser guns. "Like I said, he owes it to us. Hey, Ramjet," he called out. "you don't need to get the Combaticons here anymore, we can handle whatever backup those idiot Lamborghinis might've brought along."

Ramjet didn't reply, so Skywarp assumed he had just cut the standard distress call to headquarters.

"Do you think they were bluffing?" Thundercracker asked in a low voice as he took the proffered cable from Skywarp. Neither of them actually needed to recharge their guns after expending only one shot each, but they couldn't afford to run out of power in the face of an impending gunfight.

"They were secret agents; of course they were bluffing," Skywarp replied matter-of-factly. "It's part of their job."

"No, about their systems being resistant to the toxic energon."

"I don't think so," Skywarp said immediately, turning serious. "Primus knows how close _I_ was to backflowing all over the table because of that cake's stench."

Thundercracker laughed ruefully. "I'd forgotten how sensitive your chemical sensors are. In any case, those were some slagging good modifications they had. Any other mech would have offlined in less than a breem." He peered over his right shoulder through the muted light of the glass display. "Ramjet! Are you sure you loaded at least two cubes of that trash into the batter?" No response. The sound of a plate breaking against something metallic echoed coldly in the silence. "Ramjet? Ramjet!"

Skywarp nervously leaned over to turn off the display's light. Only sunlight, filtering feebly through the torn curtains, illuminated the café. "Maybe he went out back. Hey Dirge, Thrust, where'd Ramjet go?" Still no response. Another plate crashed, but not loud enough to cover the sound of Sunstorm's muffled shout.

Skywarp suddenly made to get up. "If this is their idea of a practical joke—" Thundercracker stopped him in time.

"Get _down_! Sunstorm?" Thundercracker called out hesitantly. "What's going on out there?"

"Nothing much," came a familiar drawl that made them both stare at each other in horror. "Just putting your other maidbots out of commission."

The two Seekers froze. "Aw, come on! We haven't even gotten to know you two yet, and you've already forgotten us?" another laid-back voice quipped.

Skywarp hissed violently. "I thought we fragging _deactivated_ them!" He tried to stand up again, but Thundercracker quickly pulled him back down. "Let _go_ of me, Cracker, I want to finish the job I star—!"

"Damn it, Skywarp, you can't just rush out there!" Thundercracker tried not to look panicked as he popped out a wireless communicator from under his thigh plate. He began punching some buttons on it, but only the dull crackle of static came out. He tried again, but nothing happened. He slammed his fist against the platform. "Slag, they've jammed our frequencies!"

"Not if I can help it," Skywarp snarled angrily. He powered up a small console he pulled from underneath the cash register and began rapidly hacking away at the keys, his optics fixed intently on the screen. "Stall them, shoot them, do whatever it takes, Cracker, just buy me some time!"

Thundercracker nodded. "All right." He shifted to a kneeling position and pushed a button that lowered the display slightly, increasing his visual range while still providing sufficient cover. He turned up his optics' sensitivity to compensate for the dim lighting. Suddenly he caught a flash of a sharp yellow wedge behind an upturned table against the darkened eastern wall. He grinned ferociously.

_Found you._

He fired twice at the table and ducked. "Still alive, 'Bots?" he called out conversationally.

"It's going to take a lot more than that to disassemble us," Sunstreaker replied, shooting back enthusiastically.

Over the _fwip fwip_ of his lasers Thundercracker asked, "How'd you two get around the café so fast?"

He could hear the other mech's conceited smirk as he returned fire. "V-12 engines, baby!"

Thundercracker whistled appreciatively through his vents. "Pretty impressive specs, Autobot, but do you have the endurance to match your speed?"

The Lamborghinis' laughter rang out through the empty café. Even Skywarp cracked a smile. "I'm sorry, did you want a demonstration?" Sideswipe teased, shooting through a different angle.

Skywarp noticed the purple glow of the Autobot's laser beam, and realized they had taken the other Seekers' weapons, but strangely he was too euphoric to care. "Too easy, Sideswipe!" he shouted back, not breaking his concentration on the console. "You've got no chance against our twin F100 turbofans. What kind of satisfaction are we going to get out of that?" Thundercracker laughed as he now shot with both guns over the display, but Sideswipe pulled his leg back in time.

Skywarp motioned Thundercracker to come closer. "Relay the communication on an infrasonic frequency," he whispered, "I can at least clear the airwaves that far without being detected." He raised one ocular ridge at his wingmate. "Enjoying yourself?"

"Am I?" Thundercracker retorted lightly, kneeling up again to shoot at a momentarily exposed headfin. "What's that smile doing on _your_ faceplate, then?"

"Just call the Cassetticons already," Skywarp said, trying to force his lips down.

This sobered up Thundercracker. "Why not the Combaticons?"

"Because I can't clear you long enough to get around that blasted switchboard at headquarters. Hurry!"

Thundercracker dialed hastily on the communicator, not bothering to leave anything longer than an SOS. "Okay, I'm done."

"Good." Skywarp typed one last line of code into the console before stowing it away under the register. "Here, hold these," he said, quickly tossing a handful of cluster bombs and ray grenades at Thundercracker, who nearly dropped them in surprise. A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he grabbed one ray grenade from Thundercracker's fumbling hands and tossed it over the display. It exploded against the Lamborghinis' table instantly. "I'll cover you, okay?"

Thundercracker opened his mouth to ask what he was doing, but found out soon enough as Skywarp grabbed his free arm and abruptly teleported them both to where Ramjet lay prone by a bay window. "Damage report, Thundercracker," Skywarp said briskly, shooting both guns from under a table on the now exposed Lamborghinis, who shouted curses as they scurried for new cover.

Thundercracker was still dazed from the teleportation and the sudden use of his full designation, but he kept his hands steady as he opened the control panel on Ramjet's chest. "Ramjet's still functional, but all his vocal and motor circuits have been ripped out." He shook his head. "With the proper tools, I _could_ render him slightly serviceable, but right now there's nothing I can do."

Skywarp sighed out of his vents as he leaned back against a table leg, cooling down his guns. "We'll just have to carry him out of here, then." He fidgeted uncomfortably. "Hey," he said suddenly, sounding uncharacteristically shy as he looked away. "Could you take my skirt off? I can't reach that far back in here. And I could take yours off, too."

Thundercracker was silent. Skywarp fidgeted again, trying to control the sudden rush of hot air from his afterburners. "Look, it's impeding my movements, okay, and it's not like we can always keep shooting on our knees." He looked back at Thundercracker, who was now wearing a small smile on his faceplate as he just _looked_ at Skywarp, who looked away again. "Oh, shut up, are you going to do it or not?"

"I haven't even said anything yet," Thundercracker replied innocently. He moved closer and straddled Skywarp's legs as he reached around behind him, pretending to feel around his back for the latch that would release the curved sheet of metal. For once, he was glad for Megatron's weird fetishes.

"Um. Cracker," Skywarp's whispered shakily beside Thundercracker's audio receptor. "That's not my skirt."

Thundercracker snickered as he ran his fingers along the wires underneath Skywarp's empennage. "Consider this a personal favor from me, Skywarp," he whispered back, letting their helmets bump softly.

Skywarp arched suddenly when he felt Thundercracker strumming a cable than ran through his left pylon, his optics glowing feverishly bright. He clasped his arms tightly behind Thundercracker's wings and bit back a whimper. "And what are you going to do?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. "Make me overload while the Autobots blast us to scraps?"

"You have the strangest ideas about interfacing, you know that?" Thundercracker's voice was heady as Skywarp alternately gripped and stroked his wings, unmindful of the laser beams flying overhead. "But you're right, there are a couple things we need to take care of first." Skywarp heard the short click of his skirt being undone. Fumbling, he did the same to Thundercracker's skirt, the metal clanging on the floor. Thundercracker pulled Skywarp close, pressing their cockpits together, and fired at the Lamborghinis without breaking his gaze on Skywarp, who suddenly caught Thundercracker's lips in a crushing kiss while he blasted his own lasers carelessly over his shoulder.

Just as Skywarp thought he was going to lose control on his processor, Thundercracker slowly broke the kiss. "You're really getting off on this, aren't you." he said, smiling at Skywarp's glassy optics. He pulled away and grabbed Ramjet behind him. "What are you waiting for, Skywarp? Get us out of here already!"

Skywarp shook himself out of his stupor, his spark still burning almost painfully inside his chest cavity. He reached for Thundercracker's hand and teleported them to Thrust's location, where Thundercracker quickly assessed that he sustained the same damage as Ramjet. Skywarp surprised the Autobots by shooting at their exposed backs, and teleported again to Dirge as they retaliated into thin air. He set Thrust on the floor beside Dirge's inert body near the entrance's broken doors, and Thundercracker did the same with Ramjet. He gave Dirge's panel a look-over and shook his head.

"They're all in the same state. It looks like they were offlined first by some kind of foam, look." He motioned to Dirge's faceplate, the lower half smeared with a thick pale substance.

"It's icing from the cake," Skywarp said, wrinkling his faceplate. "Trust those slagpits to use all of our own weapons against us."

An engine roared from the street outside, followed by loud, insistent honking. Thundercracker shot at the Lamborghinis, who suddenly popped into view, blue optics glittering, to see where the noises came from, but they ducked immediately. "That's Rumble and Frenzy! Let's go grab Sunstorm and get out of here!"

"I don't have that much power left to teleport more than one mech with me," Skywarp said. Thundercracker suddenly noticed that his vents were expelling air too fast. "You'll have to run out ahead of me and bring Ramjet and the others outside, while I get Sunstorm myself. Give me the bombs, they should cause enough of a distraction to cover me."

Two more laser beams fizzed over them, but Thundercracker just stared incredulously at Skywarp. "Have your processors _fried?_ Sunstorm's too close to them and you're too low on energy to defend yourselves against two fully functional Autobots!"

Skywarp shook his head, and smiled tiredly. "I can manage one last burst of energy, Cracker," he tried to say reassuringly. He took the bombs from Thundercracker and turned around, but a hand shot out and gripped his shoulder tightly, almost denting the metal plating.

"Don't you _dare_ terminate on me, you piece of slag," Thundercracker growled, his optics glowing fiercely. Skywarp winked as he gently pulled away, and blipped out of sight.

Thundercracker's face was drawn as he half-crawled out of the café's entrance, bearing Dirge and Thrust over each shoulder and dragging Ramjet beside him. Hazily he saw that the area had already been cleared of the few curious passers-by that gathered on their private street. Just as he almost collapsed on the sidewalk under the weight of the three mechs, Rumble and Frenzy ran to his side and took Dirge's body from his shaking arms. He set down the other two bodies slowly.

"Thanks," he wheezed. He stood up and looked at the shadowy truck the Cassetticons had jumped out of. "Taking the day off, Motormaster?" A quiet laugh issued from the truck's grills.

"Strictly speaking, he's not supposed to be here," Rumble said, dragging Dirge's body, "but we thought you needed some heavy-duty transportation."

"Where's Astrotrain?"

Frenzy laughed, straining as he and Rumble each hauled Thrust and Ramjet into Motormaster's trailer. "He's off chaperoning Starscream somewhere. Megatron's orders." He leaned heavily against the compartment door, winded. "Aren't you coming in yet?"

They heard a succession of ground-shaking blasts from the café. Thundercracker gripped a window sill to keep himself from keeling over in a faint. "No, not yet, Skywarp and Sunstorm are still—"

Two figures suddenly materialized beside him. Skywarp fell to his hands and knees, turbines whirring wildly, letting Sunstorm roll off his sagging fuselage. He looked up at Thundercracker and held one thumb up, grinning crookedly. "Made it back… blasted those… slagging…" He coughed up a little energon on the sidewalk. "… Sunstorm, he… he's still online…"

It took all of Thundercracker's self-control to keep himself from tearing Skywarp to pieces for making him so worried. Frenzy and Rumble rushed to the golden Seeker, whose dim optics were flickering erratically. He tried to speak. "S-sky… warp… wait, I… I can s-still… I-I can fight…"

Skywarp nodded weakly to the Cassetticons, who immediately loaded Sunstorm into Motormaster and jumped in after him. "Get your afts in here, you two!" Rumble shouted, ready to shut the door.

"Hold on!" Thundercracker swung Skywarp's right arm over his shoulder and hoisted him up by his waist, but he got no further than one step when a wall of bright violet light erupted right in front of him. His initial shock melted away into a heavy, numbing dread. On the other side, Frenzy was shouting something about an energon barrier activating while Rumble seemed to be shooting at a thick metal post on one end of the sidewalk, to no avail.

"You all go on ahead!" Thundercracker shouted, suddenly realizing that they had committed a major tactical error. "Get them to Bombshell's lab, he'll know what to do!"

He made out the vague outline of Rumble waving madly through the barrier. "But what about—"

Skywarp's optics had gone dark, but he shouted back hoarsely, "We can handle these creatorless bastards! JUST GO!"

Motormaster's tires screeched against the road as he sped away. Thundercracker felt Skywarp go limp, falling instantly offline. He picked up his wingmate's unconscious body in his arms and turned to face the gaping entrance, where the twins were each slumped against a door frame.

"I wondered what would happen if I ripped this out," Sideswipe said, weakly holding up the console Skywarp had used earlier, its torn wiring still sparking faintly. Thundercracker noticed with savage glee that the Lamborghinis looked as mutilated and exhausted as they were, their once-dapper black suits now ripped and hanging in tatters.

"A barrage of bombs later, and you glitches are still functioning?" he rasped. He locked in his knees, ignoring his preservation system's commands to make them give way. He looked at the twins balefully. "Are there any more _modifications_—" he spat the word— "that I should be aware of?"

Sunstreaker pulled a pained smirk through the soot smudged on his cheeks. "There's always my dashing good looks."

Thundercracker coughed a fitful laugh at the absurdity of the situation as his knees finally buckled, losing the strength to remain upright. He carefully set Skywarp down and watched the world tilt precariously around him with disinterest. Sunstreaker suddenly rushed to his side and caught him before he hit the ground, but Thundercracker feebly tried to push him away. "I don't need your slagging help, Autobot," he slurred as he fought off the intense desire to recharge.

The last thing Thundercracker saw was Sideswipe standing over his twin, their expressions unreadable against the harsh glare of the energon barrier. "I wish I could say I wasn't going to," he heard Sunstreaker say regretfully before he shut down completely.


	3. Chapter 3

"… could hammer a sheet over there, to cover up that hole…"

Skywarp sputtered online as his audios picked up distant voices. Groggily, he performed a rudimentary scan on his internal systems and, satisfied that there were no more major anomalies, activated his optics. Immediately he wished he hadn't.

He was completely disarmed and kneeling on the cold floor of the pitch-black café. Switching to night vision, he saw the whole place was still in chaos, although someone had boarded up all the windows and the doors, clearing a wide circle of debris around him. His legs were forced apart by the same stasis ropes that pulled his arms by the wrists painfully high above his head. He tried tugging his hands free when a bored voice spoke behind him.

"Don't bother; it's too secure," it said. Skywarp craned his neck, and was shocked to see that he was back-to-back with Thundercracker, who was in the same restrained position. Their legs, wrists, and wings had been tightly lashed together, grating the smooth metal planes against each other uncomfortably. "Even if you do break loose, you'll just blow this place sky high. The bombs over there," Thundercracker nodded to the pile of leftover explosives to his left, "apparently go off when the ropes slacken."

Skywarp glanced up at the bare ceiling, where the ropes looped firmly around an exposed beam before connecting to a series of fuses. He slumped defeatedly in his bonds. "Fantastic," he said in a hollow voice. "Absolutely fantastic. And I haven't even had any proper lunch yet."

Thundercracker fondly remembered his own cesium salami sandwich, which he had left untouched after Sunstorm brought them that blasted note earlier.

He sighed. They had no other choice but to wait this one out.

.. .. .. ..

A few nano-kliks of silence later they heard footsteps crunching towards them, coming from a cautious Sideswipe who, upon noticing both their red optics glowing, nonchalantly turned around again. "Hey, Sunny," he called, "they're back online."

Harsh light suddenly clapped to life over the Seekers' heads, barely giving their optics time to adjust to the brightness. From a dark corner of the café, Sunstreaker emerged, clutching a dented sheet of metal. "Ladies!" he exclaimed with painfully false cheer. "So glad you could join us this evening."

"Can it, Sunstreaker," Thundercracker replied testily. "You know we're no more female than you are."

Sunstreaker stopped, then shrugged and went back to nailing shut a windowpane, which let in the violet light of the still-active energon barrier on the sidewalk.

Skywarp looked at his surroundings again, then checked his chronometer. "How long have we been out?" he asked over Sunstreaker's loud banging.

Sideswipe grabbed a upturned chair and straddled it the wrong way around to face them. He rested his chin heavily on the back of the seat. "Over nine joors," he said idly. "You jets sure took your time recharging."

Sunstreaker hammered in one last nail and, seemingly pleased with his handiwork, went to lean beside his twin's chair at the edge of the pool of light. "They were teleporting all over the place," he said, crossing his arms and surveying the two ensnared mechs impassively. "It's a wonder they even lasted that long."

"Good thing we disabled that pesky little module." Skywarp flinched.

"Those stasis ropes were a good idea, too, can't imagine what would happen if they had a chance to transfo—"

"Cut the slag already," Skywarp interrupted, thoroughly incensed. "You left our mouths unbound for a reason, let's get on with it."

Sunstreaker shifted his weight to his other foot. "We're not going to force it out of you if you don't want to say anything," he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

"What now, you're _bargaining_?" Thundercracker let out a mirthless laugh. "That's a little below your standards."

Sideswipe widened his optics in mild curiosity, but betrayed no other expression. "What standards?"

"Normally," Skywarp elaborated airily, "you'd thrash your hostages so hard until they're too damaged to lift even a servo in retaliation. Then, you pry your answers from their cold, fading sparks." His tone was challenging them. "Am I right?"

Sideswipe stood up from his chair at the same time Sunstreaker straightened himself, faceplates suddenly splitting into identical manic grins. Their engines revved into a crescendo as they walked into the spotlight, to the Seekers' rising apprehension.

Sunstreaker stopped in front of Thundercracker, crossed his arms and tutted mock-seriously. "Do you really want us to do that?"

Sideswipe crouched before Skywarp, his grin almost predatory. "Because you see," he leaned closer to the other mech's audio receptor, "we had a much better idea in mind," he said, voice dropping to a caressing whisper. Before Skywarp could react, Sideswipe crouched back on his rear bearings and motioned to Sunstreaker, who produced a small remote control from inside his arm. With unnecessary flourish, he flicked a button.

Instantly, strategic plates of armor slid off the fliers' streamlined frames and clattered on the floor amidst tattered bits of silver lace, revealing their most intimate substructures. Tightly wound cords, thrumming with energy, intertwined with translucent tubes through which various fluids coursed underneath their exoskeleton. Light-emitting diodes twinkled colorfully amid switches and dials inside their bare cockpits. Bolts and screws glinted in their long cylindrical engines, the expensive lubricant catching in the light. Coupled with their gratuitously strung-up positions, it was without a doubt a sublimely erotic vision.

"Oh dear Primus," Thundercracker groaned despite the embarrassed rush of heat from his ventilators, "I am _so_ not sparkbonding with some ground-kissing Autobot."

"Whoever said anything about bonding?" Sunstreaker asked in an innocent tone that clashed with his devious smile. He knelt as he reached around Thundercracker's thorax better to hold the back of his cantilevers, and reeled him in for a kiss that sent sparks coasting excitedly along the blue Seeker's exposed wiring.

"Think of this," Sideswipe said, sliding his digits slowly along Skywarp's spine, "as pure, mindless interfacing," he found the air brake and pumped it, "with no wires attached."

Skywarp couldn't help smiling; the slagging Lamborghini was damned good at this. "Pity," he breathed heatedly, "I was looking forward to a night of meaningful love-making."

Sideswipe chuckled as pulled back slightly, locking gazes with Skywarp. "I wouldn't want you to get too comfortable," he said as he dug his hand into a knot of cables in Skywarp's inner thigh, causing him to gasp; "we're supposed to be torturing you, after all."

Albeit reluctantly, Thundercracker broke away from the kiss. His optics had dimmed from the explosive sensations Sunstreaker was causing somewhere at the back of his neck. "Ah," he managed to say, "going for the slow, sweet torment angle, are we?"

"In a manner of speaking," Sunstreaker replied absentmindedly, intent on what he was doing. "See, I could do _this_," he surged forward and flicked his glossa on a wire beneath his exploring fingers, and was almost unbalanced by a sudden frisson from the other mech, "and keep going," another lick sent Thundercracker shivering again, "cycle," lick, shiver, "after _agonizing_ cycle…"

Thundercracker fought to regain control on his motor circuits. "Wonderful technique," he admitted shakily, "but it's going to take a lot more than to get an actual reaction out of— AAGH!"

Thundercracker suddenly pitched forward against Sunstreaker, who laughed as he steadied the hyperventilating mech. "You were saying something about a reaction?" he asked, his blue optics sparkling wickedly as he continued exploring Thundercracker's circuitry.

Thundercracker looked at him archly, then lowered the timbre of his voice almost to a purr. "Untie my hands now," he whispered into Sunstreaker's audio receptor, "and I can rock your mechanisms with an overload more intense than anything you've ever experienced."

"Mmm…" Sunstreaker said appreciatively, pulling back to grin with atrocious superiority at Thundercracker, his hands never leaving the wires. "Tempting, but no. I like being in control."

Thundercracker glared back as best as he could through his maddening arousal. "Frag you."

Behind him, Skywarp was already mewling fitfully under Sideswipe's languorous ministrations. Sideswipe began to slow down, causing Skywarp to whine softly in protest. He had to think of something to distract the violet Seeker from overloading too soon.

"So, uh," he said, finding thinking to be an increasingly difficult task, "tell me about Megatron."

Skywarp stared at him in disbelief for a moment. "I already told you, I ain't telling you jack slag about where he is."

"No, no." Sideswipe rested his hands on the violet Seeker's hips, barely touching the naked cables. "I meant… what kind of mech he is, what his personal preferences are, and, well… things like that," he finished lamely. Sunstreaker threw his twin a withering look, but Sideswipe thought it lacked the necessary potency with Thundercracker panting frantically in his arms.

Skywarp thought for a moment, and decided to go along with it. He could fill out a megamile-long datapad with a list of things he could say about his commander; but still, he had to be careful. "Well…" he began, trying to sort out his lust-hazed thoughts and arrange them in a fairly intelligible order. "Megatron's a crazy bad-aft son of a slag heap, who enjoys abusing all his minions and expending them like empty cartridge shells." He tried to shrug. "Not the kind of mech I'd want for my boss, but there you are."

"In particular," Thundercracker chimed in over Sunstreaker's bobbing head, "he takes perverse joy in using us as bait to lure his opponents to their doom, like in this…" he flicked an ineffective wrist at the ruins around them, "… this place—" and was cut off mid-sentence by Sunstreaker's knee digging in between his legs.

Sunstreaker snickered, catching his twin's optics. "Yeah," he said a little breathlessly, "Sides and I can relate—_our_ boss once set us up as bait for Sharkticon guards—"

"—only for a certain _someone_ to take all the glory for that mission's success," Sideswipe finished darkly, although his tone was somewhat diminished by his fascination with the way Skywarp would twitch when he sent little sparks of static dancing along a side cable. He had to keep Skywarp talking, though; if either of the Seekers reached overload too soon, the twins would have nothing left to bargain with. Then Skywarp bucked hard against him, and the static electricity jumped back for one sweet tortuous moment through a rip in his shirt, crackling across his hood and making him lose his train of thought.

Sideswipe suppressed a moan as he tried to speak again. "Is it true that you're two of the top-ranking jet judo masters in all of Cybertron?" he asked, inadvertently putting a husky tone to his voice.

"We were _the_ top-ranking jet judo masters in this entire _galactic_ sector," Skywarp corrected. "Once." He peeked up at the red Lamborghini coyly. "How did you know that? Most practitioners of that art don't even know who ranks in the higher echelons."

"Me and Sunny dabble in just about every possible discipline we can," Sideswipe flippantly replied. "But between you and me," he said as he ran his knuckles lightly across the navigation controls inside Skywarp's cockpit, eliciting another desperate gasp from the restrained mech, "I prefer crystalocution so much better."

"Megatron also loves sending us on suicide missions," Thundercracker continued, undeterred by Sunstreaker's thigh rubbing against his sensitive pelvic wiring. "Once, he had us stalk all five Aerialbots on the wing in broad _daylight_. And we don't exactly camouflage well against fluffy white clouds."

"Then there was that time a deca-cycle ago," Skywarp enthused candidly while Sideswipe was practically elbow-deep in his cockpit, "when he sent us to steal the AllSpa—"

He stopped.

There was an awkward silence, during which nobody moved, vocalized, or felt anything.

The twins slowly withdrew their hands, exchanging a look of surprise. Skywarp cringed. Thundercracker cleared his vocal processor.

"Skywarp…" he hissed.

"… yes?" Skywarp said in a small voice.

"When we get out of here," Thundercracker continued, shaking with barely controlled rage, "remind me to tear off your wings…"

"… and?"

"… and shove them up your tailpipe. Painfully."

"… yes, Thundercracker." Skywarp hung his head, utterly chagrined.

"Hey, hey," Sideswipe said, gently lifting up Skywarp's chin. "Skywarp, listen to me. It's obvious that you didn't want to do this. You were _forced_ to do it; it's not your fault—"

"Don't listen to him, Skywarp," Thundercracker cut in, his voice taut. Skywarp tried to look at Thundercracker around his arm.

"Wait, Sideswipe's just—"

Thundercracker was straining at his bonds now. "Primus damn it, he's manipulating you!"

Sunstreaker grabbed the sides of Thundercracker's helmet, forcing the other mech to stop thrashing. "Thundercracker, look at me, nobody's manipulating anybody around here—"

Thundercracker scoffed, optics blazing. "'Nobody's manipulating anybody'? Give me a break, Sunstreaker, I may be a chambermaid but I'm not stupid—"

Skywarp could feel the restraints about to give out. Sunstreaker continued in what he hoped was a soothing voice, "Look, we're just talking—"

"If we were _just talking_," Thundercracker said harshly, baring his teeth, "you wouldn't have tied us up and kept us from overloading on purpose!"

Sunstreaker was so surprised he actually laughed. "Well, I happen to like taking it slow—"

"Okay, _that's it!_" Thundercracker lunged forward so hard he finally broke through the stasis ropes holding him back, and landed squarely on top of Sunstreaker. "You wanted a good time, I'll give you a slagging good time," he growled, hands poised to tear the yellow Lamborghini's life-cords out of his throat.

A loud beep in the far corner interrupted them. They all turned to stare in horror at the now ticking explosives,

Sideswipe sighed. "I did tell you that was a bad idea, didn't I?" He stood up and loosened Skywarp's wrists. Skywarp muttered a word of thanks, not meeting Sideswipe's optics, and started reattaching the sheets of metal that had fallen off him earlier.

Thundercracker whirled his head around to stare at Sideswipe. He was working his mouth, but his vocalizer had short-circuited in shock.

Sunstreaker regained his senses and eased himself from underneath a still-stunned Thundercracker. He stood up, and heaved the other mech up on his feet. "Incidentally," he tried to say calmly, "how much time do we have left?"

Skywarp snapped the canopy of his cockpit in place, and helped Thundercracker put himself back together, first untangling the wires that had stuck in his wingmate's throat. Sideswipe glanced at the dial attached to the bombs. "Two breems and counting," he replied, vainly trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

As soon as Thundercracker was fully clad, he looked at the twins and asked, "Is there any way we can disable that?"

Sunstreaker shook his head. "Too risky. Only the entire Iacon Bomb Squad can defuse whatever Sides did with that thing."

"I do regret my genius sometimes," Sideswipe said sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck.

Thundercracker frowned, all business again. "We need to find a way out of here," he said, trying to ignore the ominous ticking behind him.

Skywarp dashed to a boarded window on the opposite wall and tore off a sheet of metal. "How are we going to do that?" he asked, his silhouette thrown into sharp relief against the violet light. "The energon barrier outside's still active."

"Can you teleport out of here?"

Skywarp just stared pointedly at the twins, who at least had the tact to look appropriately remorseful.

"Tch." Thundercracker looked up, deep in thought. "We'll have to fly out through the ceiling," he said at length. "Luckily, there's only one story to worry about. Skywarp, transform."

They quickly morphed into their jet alt-modes and began warming up their engines. "Are you two coming or not?" Thundercracker called out crossly over his wing.

The two Lamborghinis looked up from where they had been listlessly poking the debris.

"You're taking us with you?" Sunstreaker asked incredulously.

"Why?" Sideswipe added.

Thundercracker was silent.

"… You didn't kill us when you had the chance," Skywarp said hesitantly. "We're just returning the favor."

The twins stood and gaped in abject shock. "What in the name of the Pit are you two bolt buckets waiting for?!" Thundercracker hollered anxiously.

They each clambered over a jet, hastily hooking their feet on the tailfins and clutching the wings. The timer on the explosives indicated less than twenty kliks left before detonation.

"Hold on tight!" Skywarp shouted over the deafening roar of their turbines. In an astrosecond after lift-off they crashed violently through what was left of the roof, soaring almost vertically into the glittering night sky of Iacon.

When they had cleared at least three hundred mechanometers of altitude, Thundercracker yelled over the madly howling air, "Brace yourselves, we're about to ride out the sonic boom any klik now!"

An unseen wave of force suddenly ballooned out from below, propelling them upward with a burst of speed even faster than mechanically possible. For one sickening moment Sunstreaker saw the world ripple tremulously before he heard the actual sound of the explosives going off on the ground far beneath them. He glanced to his right, and would have laughed at his brother desperately clinging onto Skywarp's fuselage with all four limbs if he wasn't feeling too nauseous himself. He shut off his optics before he saw the fabric of space-time take any more damage.

Eventually they slowed their ascent, and flew at a less steep angle. The twins visibly relaxed their grip upon feeling the decrease in G-forces.

"Where do we drop you off?" Thundercracker asked, then wondered if his question was in bad taste considering the situation.

Sideswipe made the delightful mistake of looking down to determine their location. "If we're flying north above Wingnut Avenue, we should take a left on Motorcade Parkway andohPrimusmyhead—" He clamped one shaking hand over his mouth before something other than words came out of it. Skywarp considered doing an aileron roll for kicks, but decided his paint job was already garish enough without Sideswipe's sick all over it.

Sunstreaker didn't even bother switching his optics back on. "Just take us to the tallest building in the city center."

"Is that where your headquarters are?" Skywarp asked, suddenly curious.

Sideswipe smiled wryly. "Of course not, but it's the closest we can get to solid ground from this height."

Thundercracker waved his wings in an airplane shrug. "Suit yourselves." He relaxed to cruising speed, and Skywarp followed suit.

They flew in companiable silence for a few more breems, during which time Sideswipe let his arms dangle exhaustedly from Skywarp's sides, and Sunstreaker began tracing languid circles on Thundercracker's wing.

"_In another time, in another life,_" Skywarp recited in a quiet voice suddenly, jolting the others out of their reverie as they closed in on the building, "_you and I might have been friends, allies, even lovers; but here I am_…"

"…_and there you are, on two sides of the same river,_" Sunstreaker joined in, to everyone's surprise, "_and nothing in the universe could persuade me to cross it, not even you_." There was a faint trace of bitterness in his voice.

The silence that followed grew heavy with unspoken emotion as the two jets circled before landing on the rooftop. The Lamborghinis gingerly climbed off, a little unsteady on their feet. The two Seekers remained in their alt-mode, not trusting their faceplates to remain completely emotionless.

"I guess this is goodbye," Skywarp said. He still felt like pummeling the two cars into spare parts for messing with his teleportation, but he couldn't explain why he didn't want to leave them just yet.

"Yeah," Sunstreaker said. "Thanks for the ride. It was great knowing you two."

"See you in the next life," Sideswipe said, wearing a rather melancholic smile.

Thundercracker laughed quietly. "Somehow, I get the feeling we won't have that long to wait," he said as he and Skywarp turned to face the edge of the roof and blasted off into the open air, leaving the twins behind them on the rooftop without another word.

"What was that quote all about, anyway?" Thundercracker asked his wingmate with spiking interest, when the city had receded into small twinkling lights far below.

"Oh, that." Skywarp chuckled. "I basically told them where Megatron was."

Thundercracker almost spun out of control. "You _what_?!"

Skywarp fell back slightly and nudged Thundercracker's rudder in place with his nose. "That was a line from a well-known poem in Kaon. I was surprised Sunstreaker caught on so quickly."

"Kaon…" Thundercracker thought for a bit. "Wait, didn't we leave Kaon mega-cycles ago?

If Skywarp had been in anthro mode, he would have been smirking magnificently. "Exactly."

Thundercracker suddenly burst into mad giggles. "Skywarp, that was brilliant!"

"Yes, well." Skywarp tried to sound modest. "It should keep their transistors busy for a while."

Their raucous laughter mingled with the rushing wind as they headed back to their base.

.. .. .. ..

Sunstreaker idly swilled his third cube of high grade as he lounged back on his chair, looking inappropriately disgruntled despite the wild beach party going on around him. He watched the happily dancing couple in the middle of the packed dance floor with a resigned sort of disappointment.

"So Prime gets the girl, the crowd of adoring fans, a reluctant commendation from P _yet_ again, while all we get for our troubles are our meager salaries," he said morosely, picking at a loose thread his fiery red floral-patterned board shorts. "Remind me again why we waste our time with this agency in the first place."

Beside him, Sideswipe shrugged. "Dunno." He downed his own cube in one go and slammed it hard on the bar, splashing some liquid on his bright yellow board shorts, which had the same optic-bending design as his brother's. "Cheap thrills? Free maintenance? Besides, it was your fault for misinterpreting your 'clue.'"

Sunstreaker scoffed, and turned his back on the night's festivities. "But what is the point to all this?" he moaned, staring intently into the contents of his half-full cube and lolling slightly to one side. "Where is our life's purpose? Why bother denting our hoods and scraping our doors only for a swanky new garage and a few cubes of high grade?"

Behind them, the fabulously expensive hired band, headed by the humongously popular Blaster, smoothly entered into the next song. "_When electrum rhythms start to play, dance with me, make me sway_…"

"Don't get all existential on me again," Sideswipe said, punching his twin's head and missing spectacularly. "You were this bad when Jazz brought Bee back," here he choked slightly, "and after that night with the Seekers."

Sunstreaker finished off his remaining high grade, tossed the empty cube haphazardly over his shoulder, and buried his head in his arms on the bar counter. "Seekers," he muttered darkly. "Don't talk to me about Seekers." Somebody shouted at them for nicking his rear spoilers with the cube, but neither Lamborghini cared enough to respond.

"Oh yes, I will," Sideswipe said firmly. He knocked back another cube, and poked an unsteady finger at the yellow heap of metal beside him. "If it weren't for them, I would never have found out that my narcissistic brother actually read stuff other than labels of car wax."

Sunstreaker listened drowsily to Blaster's low crooning voice sing a few more lines, "_Like a pylon bending in the breeze, bend with me, sway with ease… When we dance you have a way with me, stay with me, sway with me…_" before he realized something gravely amiss in what Sideswipe just said. He raised his head and peered at his brother wanly.

"Seriously, Sides, you didn't recognize that poem?" He tried to lean forward, but almost lost his balance and sat back instead. "It's only _the_ most famous poem by—"

"No, Sunny," Sideswipe interrupted with the supreme patience of an overcharged mech still faking functionality, "I neither know nor care about who wrote that— hey, look!" he exclaimed with sudden fervor as he glanced over his shoulder, almost falling off his seat in excitement. "Decepticon Triplechangers!"

"Oh no, Sideswipe," Sunstreaker said warningly, seizing his twin's face and staring him down with drunken doggedness, "you are _not_ careening your way out of this." He shook a finger at Sideswipe's unfocused optics. "We are going to have a proper talk right now about your appalling lack of culture—"

Sideswipe snatched Sunstreaker's hand before it could multiply any further. "Sunny, just shut your valves for one fragging astrosecond and look over there." He pointed his swaying finger toward the general direction of the crowded entrance, past where Blaster was working himself up marvelously into the next verse, "_Other dancers may be on the floor, but my optics will see only yoouuuu… Only you have that cyclic techniiiique… when we sway I go weeeeaak!_" with his backup cassettes harmonizing in time.

"Hey, yeah," Sunstreaker said after taking a moment to resolve his uncooperative vision, "it's Blitzwing and Astrotrain and— Primus damn it, Sides!" he yelled as pulled his brother's offending finger down and spun him around. "Don't point at random mechs in the crowd, you uneducated coupe!" he hissed as they hunched their shoulders together over the bar.

Sideswipe patted Sunstreaker's back amiably. "Cool your cylinders, Sunny, it's not like they saw me." He tried to glare intimidatingly at the newcomers over his shoulder, but ended up looking like he just swallowed stale motor oil. "Besides, they're the ones gatecrashing _our_ party."

A thought slowly crossed Sunstreaker's energon-soaked processor, and he raised up a finger importantly. "I was thinking," he announced, then paused. They both stared at his finger blearily for a few moments, wondering what it meant. Behind the bar, Powerglide rolled his optics and shook his head hopelessly at them while he polished the counter top.

"I was thinking," he began again, when he collected enough of his thoughts to go on, "if those 'Cons are here, either they're escorting Megatron…"

"… which would be a definite though not permanent impossibility," Sideswipe interjected enthusiastically.

"… or," Sunstreaker continued, surprisingly lucid in his eagerness, "they're here on their own…"

"… with their own security detail of lower ranking mechs…" Sideswipe said, catching on at last.

They clutched each other's arm as they triumphantly concluded together, "Which means…!"

"Hello, shark bait," said two cool voices in unison behind them.

.. .. .. ..

The last bit is an epilogue of sorts, which I set to occur after the major events of You Only Offline Twice (snerk), which has sadly not been finished by its author (who is not me, btw) just yet. The rest of the story occurs before YOOT, though. I apologize for the tiny spoilers, but pin the blame on real life for delaying this wonderful fanverse.

Also, that song is obviously not mine. I just refitted it with more Cybertronian-friendly idioms.


End file.
